


Fur and Good Fortune

by theskywasblue



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Puppies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-26 03:57:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3836158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm terribly, terribly sorry about this - but my car won't start, and he's been sick all night..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fur and Good Fortune

**Author's Note:**

> Thank Redxluna for encouraging my Cullen with puppies fantasies...

“If you’re selling puppies door to door, I can promise you I really don’t want one,” Dorian said, before realizing that he actually recognized the man standing despondent his doormat. He was the tenant of apartment 104, who liked to leave his kitchen window open and wash dishes with his shirt off. Not that Dorian made a habit of peeking in his neighbor's’ windows or anything - he just happened to pass by now and then, while taking the trash out.

“No - I’m -” his neighbour stammered, raking a mitten-covered hand through his blond hair, succeeding in making it curl and frizz with winter static. The puppy - a round little black and brown thing, tucked into the crook of his elbow - whined pitifully. “I’m terribly, terribly sorry about this, but my car won’t start, and he’s been sick all night -”

He just sort of trailed off. Dorian stared at him, dully until his sleep-addled brain filled in the blanks. Since his internal filter left something to be desired, Dorian automatically found himself saying, “Are you even allowed to have dogs in this building?”

“Sorry,” his neighbour started backing off immediately. “I didn’t mean to disturb you, I just thought maybe - sorry.”

The smart thing to do would have been to close the door and let him go on his way, but Dorian wasn’t particularly smart before eight in the morning and a strong cup of coffee. 

“Wait - wait,” he called, watching his neighbour skid to a wary halt on the filthy hallway rug. “You just - what - need a ride somewhere, is that it?”

“To the vet. Barrow’s Road and Eighteenth. They’re expecting me.”

Dorian sighed, scrubbing a hand across his forehead. “Yes, alright. Let me get dressed.”

“Thank the Maker,” his neighbour breathed, shakily, turning on his heel and practically running back to Dorian’s door. “Thank you - I mean it - thank you so much.”

“You might as well come in,” Dorian muttered, motioning him through the door. “I’ll be just a minute.”

“Thank you,” his neighbour said again, as Dorian ducked into the bedroom, scouring for something presentable to wear. This was not how he wanted to spend his Saturday, but he had always been a bit powerless against a handsome face. 

"Don't get any ideas," he told his reflection sternly as he worked the buttons on his shirt. “Remember what a handsome stranger did to you the last time - just think about that, Pavus. Keep it firmly in mind -”

“Excuse me," his neighbour called from the front entrance. "Sorry, do you have some paper towel?"

Dorian sighed, finished with the zipper on his pants, and cut through the kitchen on his way back to where his neighbour now stood with puppy vomit staining the sleeve of his tacky denim-covered coat.

"He's not going to do that in my car, is he?" 

His neighbour sighed, wiping bile from his sleeve. Dorian gingerly accepted the soiled paper towel with thumb and forefinger. "He won't, he absolutely won't. I promise."

Dorian was sceptical, but already committed, obviously. Resigned to a future of dog smell in his car, and probably worse, they headed for the parking lot. 

“I didn’t introduce myself,” his neighbour said, as Dorian cranked up the heat and cranked down the radio, so as not to blast out his passenger's ear drums. “Cullen Rutherford.”

“Dorian Pavus. Does your little friend there have a name?”

“Ah, well...not exactly,” Cullen muttered, stroking the little beast’s back with one gloved hand. “You see, I only picked him up the other day, so I hadn’t exactly decided yet. My uh - my sister read all this information on returning soldiers - how they do better _reintegrating_ if they have a pet, things like that. She didn’t like the idea of me being alone; wanted me to sign up for one of the therapy dog programs through the VA. But there are so many people who need that more than I do. I didn’t really intend to get a dog at all, but someone was selling this fellow in the parking lot at the grocery store yesterday, and...”

“Well, that was probably your first mistake,” Dorian muttered. Cullen’s face fell even more. “Sorry. That was unworthy of me.” At some point, it might be wise of him to learn not to be a _complete_ ass in the company of strangers.

“It’s alright,” Cullen responded, scratching between the puppy’s crooked little ears as it whined. “You’re probably right, actually. You wouldn’t buy anything else out of a stranger’s van, really.”

The vet’s office was apparently the place to be on a Saturday morning, already packed with patients waiting to be seen. Dorian sat, somewhat reluctantly, next to an elderly woman with a lap full of immaculately groomed poodles, and waited for Cullen to give his information to the receptionist. There was also a young woman trying to juggle a baby boy and a yowling cat in a plastic carrier, and a heavily tattooed man with something Dorian at first thought was a rat on his shoulder, but belatedly realized was actually a ferret. Eventually, Cullen came and took the seat next to him.

“They’ll call me when it’s my turn,” he said. “You don’t - that is, I’m grateful for the ride, but you don’t have to wait for me if you have other things you need to be doing.”

“And how are you proposing to get back home if I don’t wait for you, hmm?” Dorian asked. “It’s quite alright, I can spare a few hours, though I do wish I’d thought ahead and brought some papers to grade.”

“You’re a teacher?”

“Senior Chemistry at Saint Justinia,” Dorian nodded, wishing he didn’t feel ashamed to admit it. He was still waiting for the day to come when he wouldn’t hear Halward Pavus’ arrogant voice in the back of his head saying: _those who can, do; those who can’t, teach_ , every time he spoke about his chosen profession.

“That must be...challenging,” Cullen said.

Dorian laughed. “You could say that. Most days it’s a struggle to keep them from staring at their phones while I’m trying to give a lesson.” Then again, there hadn’t _been_ cellphones when Dorian had been a student at his prestigious private high school, and he’d still managed not to pay attention to his teachers. Likely, this was the universe’s idea of payback.

“I thought about being a teacher once,” Cullen said, fingers idly stroking down the length of the puppy’s back. He had very nice hands, Dorian observed, for all that they were calloused and scarred along the backs; he was very gentle with the puppy, almost timid. “But I didn’t have any money for university. The army made more sense.”

“I’d say the army is quite a bit more challenging than trying to teach the periodic table.”

“It’s different, definitely,” Cullen said. “I was good at what I did; but I won’t be going back.”

He lifted a hand to his face, touching the scar which stretched from his upper lip across his cheek. The part of Dorian that was relentlessly curious - and often slightly cruel - wanted to ask about it, but he was interrupted by one of the elderly woman’s poodles peeing on his shoe.

“Princess! Naughty darling - very naughty!” the woman scolded, as Dorian hissed curses and hobbled to the washroom. By the time he had managed to get the worst of the mess off his shoe and returned to the waiting room, Cullen was gone. Dorian took a seat well away from the poodles this time, and Cullen returned a few minutes later, without the puppy, looking panicked and slightly grey in the face.

Dorian felt his stomach drop. “Everything alright?”

Cullen sat down, heavily, a hand pushing his hair back, tangling the short curls before pressing to the back of his neck. “They’re - uh - they’re worried about some infections and things. Need to draw some blood, maybe treat him for dehydration. I’m supposed to just _wait_.”

Dorian reached out, and gave Cullen’s shoulder what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze. “I’m sure they’ll take good care of him. It _is_ their job, after all.”

Thus began what seemed like an eternity of waiting. Dorian didn't like dogs, and even he started to worry. People and their pets were filed into and out of the office at what Dorian considered to be a fairly good clip; however the same number of chairs always seemed to be occupied in the waiting room. Dorian amused himself briefly with an awful magazine, while Cullen fussed with his phone, texting back and forth with someone - his sister, Dorian supposed. Eventually, a young, blonde woman in scrubs appeared in the door of one of the three exam rooms and called, “Steel’s owner - Doctor Montilyet is ready to see you.”

Dorian didn’t even realize it was Cullen being called until the man lifted himself stiffly out of his chair and headed for the exam room. He had a certain way of walking, Dorian noticed; not exactly like he was in pain, but like his body remembered it. He was gone only a few minutes, and returned looking shaky, but relieved.

“It’s only a bit of a stomach bug, they think,” he said, almost laughing. “Not anything horrible. All he needs is some medication and he’ll be fine.”

“Well, that’s wonderful news, isn’t it?” Dorian stood, stretching out a kink in his lower back. “Nothing to worry about after all.”

“Nothing to worry about,” Cullen agreed, gracing Dorian with an unfairly lovely smile in the process.

There was still the matter of the bill, of course; Dorian decided that he very much did not want to know the details of that transaction, so he lingered off to the side while Cullen took care of it. Cullen was still receiving instructions on administering the puppy’s medication when the blonde assistant came out through the doors marked _staff only_ with Steel cradled lovingly in her arms.

“Here we are,’ she announced, cheerfully, moving to pass the now bright and squirming puppy into Dorian’s arms. “He’s happy to see you, I think.”

“No - I’m not -” Dorian started, but Steel practically leapt out of the woman’s arms towards him, leaving him with no choice but to catch the pup before he could hit the ground. “Mad little animal,” he grumbled, struggling to hold the squirming, squeaking creature and it’s abnormally long tongue away from his face.

“Steel,” Cullen sighed, easily plucking the pup from Dorian’s hands, leaving Dorian to wipe unhappily at his soiled face with his sleeve. “Look at you - you’re feeling better already, aren’t you?”

The pup squirmed frantically, slurping at Cullen’s face until he laughed, and pressed a generous kiss to the top of the little animal’s head. Dorian studiously ignored the way his chest tightened at the sight.

“Ready to go, then?”

Cullen nodded. “Lead the way.”

The cloudy morning had given way to a pleasantly bright afternoon, and with the increase in traffic the change in weather change brought about, it took considerably longer to drive back home than it had taken to drive to the clinic in the first place. At first, Steel was excited, twisting and whining in Cullen’s lap, unable to sit still’ but eventually he settled down, not sleeping, exactly, but resting; which was probably for the best, all things considered.

“I’m not sure how I’m going to get him to take these pills,” Cullen mused in the silent car, turning the foil packet of antibiotics over on his hands. “The Doctor said they are chewable but…”

“He’s a puppy,” Dorian shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll eat almost anything you put in front of him. Otherwise, I suppose you could always use peanut butter. My mother used that to give her nasty, bitey little lap monster its heart medication when I was a boy.”

Dorian hadn’t thought about that miserable creature in years, though he still had the scar on his left index finger from where it had bitten him - which had been his fault, his mother had insisted; not the precious dog’s.

“Peanut butter. I’ll remember that.”

When Dorian pulled into his parking space about fifteen minutes later, Cullen seemed to pause for a strangely long time before opening the passenger’s side door.

“Thank you again,” he said, voice pitched low, staring at the pup in his lap, almost as if he were embarrassed. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t helped us.”

_Us_. Dorian caught the word, though perhaps Cullen didn’t. Already attached to the little beast, clearly. _He is cute - in an awkward sort of way_ Dorian reflected, though whether he meant Cullen or the dog…

“It was no trouble at all. Well - actually, it was a _bit_ of trouble.” Dorian laughed when Cullen’s head snapped up, and he looked over at him, stricken. “Don’t worry yourself about it. I know what it’s like to have no one to rely on but yourself. It can be...daunting.”

“Well, if you need anything...you’re always welcome to ask,” Cullen said, swinging his legs out and easing himself out of the car with the drowsy puppy still cradled to his chest.

“Same to you,” Dorian called after him, before the door closed.

Honestly, he expected that to be the end of it. Dorian had never been terribly good at making - or, indeed, keeping friends outside of professional circles; and he didn’t even manage to glimpse Cullen at his kitchen sink in the week that followed.

But then Saturday morning arrived again, and - just as Dorian had gotten himself out of the shower, and was was struggling to decide if he had the energy to cook himself an actual breakfast, or if he was simply going to eat toast over a pile of test papers again - there came a knock at the door.

“Please don’t tell me he needs another visit to the vet.”

“Ah, no.” Cullen glanced away, rubbing the back of his neck. Steel was on a leash this time, dancing back and forth at the end of it, across Dorian’s doormat, panting exuberantly. He certainly didn’t look ill. He also looked easily twice as big as when Dorian had seen him last. “I was wondering if maybe you’d like to come and have a cup of coffee with me this morning? You don’t have to of course, but -”

“Does he drink coffee too?” Dorian interrupted, pointing to Steel.

“I hope not,” Cullen laughed, looking strangely relieved at having been cut off. “He’s got more than enough energy without it, don’t you think?”

Dorian turned towards the closet, grabbing his coat off the hanger. “Absolutely. But I could certainly use some of the artificial sort, myself. Lead the way, Steel.”

Which he did, barking merrily and tripping on oversized paws.

-End-


End file.
